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The Men Who Fix the Internet
Posted by
kdawson
on Mon Mar 16, 2009 10:36 PM
from the physical-side-of-things dept.
from the physical-side-of-things dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Remember all those undersea cables breaking? PopSci.com introduces John Rennie, who '... has braved the towering waves of the North Atlantic Ocean to keep your e-mail coming to you. As chief submersible engineer aboard the Wave Sentinel, part of the fleet operated by UK-based undersea installation and maintenance firm Global Marine Systems, Rennie — a congenial, 6'4", 57-year-old Scotsman — patrols the seas, dispatching a remotely operated submarine deep below the surface to repair undersea cables.' The article goes on to outline the physical infrastructure of the Internet, including some of its points of vulnerability."
Related Stories
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Fourth Undersea Cable Taken Offline In Less Than a Week 499 comments
An anonymous reader writes "Another undersea cable was taken offline on Friday, this one connecting Qatar and UAE. 'The [outage] caused major problems for internet users in Qatar over the weekend, but Qtel's loss of capacity has been kept below 40% thanks to what the telecom said was a large number of alternative routes for transmission. It is not yet clear how badly telecom and internet services have been affected in the UAE.' In related news it's been confirmed that the two cables near Egypt were not cut by ship anchors." Update: 02/04 07:13 GMT by Z : A commenter notes that despite the language in the article indicated a break or malfunction, the cable wasn't cut. It was taken offline due to power issues.
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IT: Fifth Cable Cut To Middle East 676 comments
You may have noticed a number of stories recently about undersea cables getting cut around the world. Apparently the total is now up to 5, but the scariest part of this is that Iran is now offline. You can also read Schneier's comments on this coincidence. Update: 02/06 17:42 GMT by Z : As a commenter notes, though the country of Iran is obviously experiencing some networking difficulties, it is not offline.
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Mediterranean Undersea Cables Cut, Again 329 comments
miller60 writes "Three undersea cables in the Mediterranean Sea have failed within minutes of each other in an incident that is eerily similar to a series of cable cuts in the region in early 2008. The cable cuts are already causing serious service problems in the Middle East and Asia. See coverage at the Internet Storm Center, Data Center Knowledge and Bloomberg. The February 2008 cable cuts triggered rampant speculation about sabotage, but were later attributed to ships that dropped anchor in the wrong place."
Submission: Who Fixes the internet? by Anonymous Coward
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Next time they sever their own fibers, (Score:2, Funny)
I suggest we leave them that way. It will reduce spam, and make Dell hire locally for their call centers.
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Catchy job title... (Score:5, Funny)
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Bonjoooour, ya cable-cutting sea monkies!
Make the damn fisherman get driver's licenses (Score:3, Interesting)
WTF are people dragging anchors around for? I would presume (and could be entirely wrong, as usual) that shallow water cable runs wouldn't be located next to anchorages. Do these sea going vessels have to stop for lunch or something?
And why to we even allow fisherman to drag crap along the sea bottom? I thought industrial level trawling went out years ago?
Re:Make the damn fisherman get driver's licenses (Score:5, Informative)
Dragging an anchor isn't something you try to do. It's something that happens when the weather is more then the anchor can handle. Better to drag the anchor then to rip the anchor capstan off the boat. Funny how boats and cables both anchor near the shore ... you know, that place where people are.
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Re:Make the damn fisherman get driver's licenses (Score:5, Informative)
You anchor down if it's stormy and you can't escape it. With strong currents or wind you might end up dragging the anchor. That's the only explanation I have.
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Re:Make the damn fisherman get driver's licenses (Score:5, Informative)
That's pretty much it. The last thing a skipper enjoys is to be pinned against a lee shore by a gale. If he can't get into the safety of deep water, dropping the hook is sometimes the only option. Sometimes, if his hook is too small or if its chain is too short for the wind/current load, it'll drag. It's not a fun situation to be in; I've been there.
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Re:Make the damn fisherman get driver's licenses (Score:5, Informative)
> Sometimes, if his hook is too small or if its chain is
> too short for the wind/current load, it'll drag
The interesting thing is that it's the weight of the chain that holds the anchor, not one of the flukes catching on something. A successful anchoring is when the anchor is on the bottom, in mud, and there are xx fathoms of chain piled up on top of it. Leastwise, 'twas so in my day.
Once we were getting underway for a dependent's cruise and the CO was on the bridge and shouted "let's go!" and clapped his hands. An alert bridge talker heard him, misunderstood, and dutifully relayed "let go!" to the foc'sle. So the anchor was dropped about 100 yards off the pier (at 4-5 knots) and fun times ensued. The CO handled it well and had the grace to make a sheepish announcement a few minutes later on the 1MC. Good times.
Parent
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Do subs have anchors?
PS - Thank you for your service. Serving on an SSBN is hard on sailors and their families, although the food is good.
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What do you think?
The NASA keep doing all those psychological experiments to test how people will cope with long term space missions. Seems a waste of time and resources to me. Don't the US Navy already know all that stuff?
I think it's easier to train a nuclear submariner to be an astronaut, than to train an airforce guy how to cope well with being confined in a metal can for months.
Re:Make the damn fisherman get driver's licenses (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Make the damn fisherman get driver's licenses (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:Make the damn fisherman get driver's licenses (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:Make the damn fisherman get driver's licenses (Score:5, Funny)
Did you never waatch Pirates of the Carribean? I seem to remember the equivalient of a hand-brake turn using anchor.
Perhaps they used an internet cable to stop
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Factory freezer-trawlers are still in wide use. Portugal and Spain are always fishing on the Flemmish Cap of the Grand Banks just outside of Canada's 200 nautical mile limit.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flemish_Cap [wikipedia.org]
They're nothing short of superheroes of the sea (Score:2)
Because anyone can still whoop Aquaman's butt.
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Because anyone can still whoop Aquaman's butt.
No, it's because they keep the flow of pr0n running.
Is it worth it? (Score:5, Funny)
Another underappreciated job (Score:5, Insightful)
57-year-old Scotsman (Score:5, Funny)
Aye Captain, but I don't know if my poor cables will take more.
Stevens was right all along (Score:5, Funny)
Neal Stephenson's Mother Earth, Motherboard (Score:5, Interesting)
...is a cool article up on Wired [wired.com] (look for the printable link option so it's all on one page) detailing an interesting adventure around the world and some of the history of undersea cables. Definitely worth a read.
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Vulnerability? (Score:3, Interesting)
Sean Gorman mapped out the US fiber-optic telco fiefdoms.
Parts of his dissertation where "removed".
http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2006/01/70040?currentPage=2 [wired.com]
Getting back to the popsci 'news'
The part I find interesting is the use of 'hubs'
Are hubs (fiber locations?) for cost savings, lazy design, best design for a shareholder when burning tax payers re nation building, collusion between telcos, easy NSA access ?
What do other parts of the world do ?
Re:Vulnerability? (Score:4, Informative)
"What do other parts of the world do ?"
The same thing
"Are hubs (fiber locations?) for cost savings, lazy design, best design for a shareholder when burning tax payers re nation building, collusion between telcos, easy NSA access ?"
All of the above
At some point you need to connect network E from Elbonia to network P from PHiliBelphia and also networks a through z. This starts to get expensive real fast no matter how you do it. Doing it in one place lowers cost (hub) but focuses for a point of failure. As the article said - you can't get away from this. I like how they said the best way to prevent cascading network damage is to shutdown the "nearest" hub connections to the failed point to minimize the damage - like they do when the electricity transmission network or a generator goes off somewhere. It isn't optional and can't really be worked around - if you want random person E to get stuff from P then you need interconnects somewhere. Yeah you could do it with a lot (a real lot) of little interconnects all over the place - just don't and service them as your staff will always be in the field.
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So this is the guy I need to send my users to (Score:5, Funny)
Everytime we have a connectivity hiccup I am flooded with calls from our users asking "Is the Internet broken?"
It takes everything in my power not to say "Yes. The Internet is, in fact, broken"
Your doing it wrong (Score:5, Interesting)
From TFA:
"If terrorists managed to gain remote access to a facility's command-and-control system, they could, for example, cause the generators to overheat and explode."
If you can make a generator explode on command, you really are doing it wrong. Backup generators may be able to be remotely started, stopped, switched in/out and checked but you should not be able to do the equivalent of burnouts with them.
Additionally, the article states that catastrophic failures would start to creep in after ~2 days of no human maintenance. WTF? Most exchanges and data centres I've been in are ghost ships 350 days a year aside from upgrades and config changes, how is it that such critical hardware can't tick over by itself for a month or so without going nipples skyward?
Hell, the average telephone exchange, if you nuked everything around it, would be giving dialtone and DSL to the skeletons for at least a week, probably more depending on how much diesel is in the tanks.
Re:Your doing it wrong (Score:5, Informative)
Hell, the average telephone exchange, if you nuked everything around it, would be giving dialtone and DSL to the skeletons for at least a week, probably more depending on how much diesel is in the tanks.
During the northeast blackout of '03, all of the utilities went out. Street lights, traffic signals, all went dark. Cell phone towers went out. There wasn't enough water pressure beyond 5 stories. There was gas, but no starter. But there was still a dialtone through the landline. And we could still make calls out, if our phone didn't require an external power source. Most of the handsets we use are cordless, but we have several of the simpler phones lying around for such emergencies.
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Re:What about satellites? (Score:5, Insightful)
Latency is a huge problem with that idea buddy.
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Re:What about satellites? (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:What about satellites? (Score:5, Funny)
Obviously the fix would be to pull backup cables to the satellites instead of relying on that crappy wireless.
Since planes don't have anchors, it would be failsafe.
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Re:What about satellites? (Score:5, Informative)
One HUGE propblem with satcoms, and why satcom pretty much went away for telephone - latency. A geosync sat orbits at 26200 miles (roughly), making a 2 way trip (up and down) a 52400 mile trip from point A to point B, or making it take a tad over .28 seconds. Now wait for your ACK to come back, another .28 seconds, and think about what you have. A slow, limited bandwith link. Generally, Satcoms have become used in one way "broadcast" type trasmissions (send the 30 minute TV show up, don't worry about the 1/4 second, as they are recording on the toher side) OR "Ad-hoc" communications, where you don't KNOW where the other station will be (a ship on the ocean, a TV news crew that is in Akron today, and Iowa next week, and even then, they try to keep the signals off the birds unless it's breaking news. You try to get it to a local affiliate, and land line it back)
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Re:What about satellites? (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:What about satellites? (Score:5, Informative)
Correct. I forgot to bring up the Low Earth Orbit Sat Phones (aka Iridium), which is another kettle of fish. The big problem there is limited channels, again, your not going to have the kind of bandwith you need for serious internet (note, I said serious, like multiple OC3 stuff).
Interestingly, NATO, with all their Sats, and Iridium (Remember, the US Military basically keeps them in business) is re-looking at HF radio comms. Ultra high speed 24 bit DSPs, and other technologies are making them clearer and more reliable (less dependent on operator skill), and they have the advantage of working when you have a limited sky view
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Oh, they do even better - they now have holograms.
Re:What about satellites? (Score:4, Interesting)
Oh those kids! Never had to work with a megabit satellite link connected somewhere in Africa and try to send VoIP to America, haven't you?
The latency is not the only problem, there are magnetic storms, other satellites crossing into the sight of yours, bad weather, and so much other crap that I can't even remember.
That is why we need thick undersea cables or all your beautiful iPhones and other gadgets will be rendered totally useless...
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Re:Why not use Satellites? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Satellites are cost effective if you are either:
1. Reaching a broad audience with the same transmission.
2. A large government with cryptic and voluminous bookkeeping designed to hide that you are at a loss.
Just ask the satellite phone companies what happens when you have to listen to that broad audience too.
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Oh forgot:
3. Have absolutely no other way to accomplish something.
Re:Why not use Satellites? (Score:5, Informative)
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I actually subscribed to Wired at the time based on that article. Sadly, their regular content was nowhere near as good.
Re:Seafloorskeeper Rennie (Score:5, Informative)
That would be 'didna'. Dinna means don't. In fact let me fix that for you, Glaswegian style:
I didna baw when ma da was chibbed fur nickin a pig, but am bawlin now :(
Getting chibbed is of course being stabbed with a sharp implement, but it works better since we haven't hung anyone in Scotland for quite some time.
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"we haven't hung anyone in Scotland for quite some time."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bay_City_Rollers [wikipedia.org]
It's a shame that some crimes go unpunished. ;)
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